This is one of the Denver & Rio Grande Western's famous "mudhens". This locomotive was built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1903 and used by the D&RGW from 1924 to 1955 when it was sold to famous actor/singer Gene Autrey. My model will represent #463 as it appeared in the early to mid thirties. Here's how she looked in 1936. I'm building this locomotive from one of the now extinct GHQ K-27 conversion kits that uses a Marklin 8896 z-scale locomotive for the chassis and the also extinct Sagami 1013 for a motor. I'm going to attempt to document as much of the actual assembly as is resonably possible. I have spent the last couple of months examining the instructions, going over Garth Hamilton's drawings for valvegear, and searching out prototype photos and information. I expect this locomotive kit to require a substantial amount of modelling time to assemble a model that looks accurate, runs smoothly and gives credit to this beautiful kit. Let's begin.
01/08/01 I opened the package that had been stored away containing the Marklin 8896 and removed the shell to expose the chassis. With this in hand, I reread the GHQ manual to make sure I was familiar with all of the areas of the chassis that had to be modified. I popped open the plastic box that I had all of the GHQ pieces stored in, removed all of the pieces which comprise this kit, and laid them out to be photographed. The first to come out was the Sagami 1013 motor and the NWSL worm. Next are the Marklin 70081 metal wheelsets for tender pickup. We are finally getting to the good stuff, the parts of this kit that make up the locomotive and tender for 463, the boiler, with it's stunning detail on the side and front, the sideframe and counterweights, tender truck parts and the trailing truck casting.
The kit instructions show the installation of the Sagami 1013 motor and the photos with the kit show a brass flywheel mounted ahead of the motor. My thoughts keep drifting to one question in particular, "Can the Faulhauber 0816 motor be mounted in place of the Sagami 1013 to match the performance of my LOK-14 K-27". I lined up the Marklin chassis with the two motors and the GHQ boiler to study the feasability of using the 0816 and it looks like this. In my opinion, the 0816 will fit, even with a flywheel, but, the Sagami will probably out pull the Faulhauber as far as torque output is concerned. My goal, however, is to match the smooth consistant performance of the Faulhauber equiped LOK-14. To do this, I need to crack open the LOK to find out if it uses the 0816 or a gearhead version of the 0816. From all outward appearances, the LOK uses a modified 8896 chassis for it's base operating platform. Which version of the 0816 they used, remains a mystery..........
01/17/01 I had no success in opening up the LOK. I removed the rear truck and the two screws that I thought would release the body from the chassis. Nothing happend. I'm beginning to wonder if it will come apart at all. I did, however, get a peak at the motor and flywheel assembly from the bottom of the loco. They used the 0816 nongearhead motor with the 1mm shaft and the power pickups facing into the locomotive. Any of the gearhead versions would be too long to fit without sticking out of the cab. The brass flywheel is on the 1.5mm shaft on the other end and the flywheel wraps around the body of the motor, but does not protrude out of the cab. This is how I intend to do the GHQ conversion.
01/19/01 The instructions for this kit start with removing the part lines, gates and taps from the castings using a no. 11 blade. I laid out the cab parts and started with them since they are the first pieces to be assembled. The flash on these parts was minimal. After 20 minutes of trimming, they were ready to be put together to form the cab. Be careful with the cab front. This casting does not have enough extra meat on it for you to file the edges where they meet up with the side castings. You'll end up with a cab front that's too small and gaps between it and the sides. Guess how I found this out!! The fix is to assemble the cab front and sides and fit it to the roof casting. File the sides of the protruding block under the cab roof until the cab body fits over this. A few strokes of the needle file and mine fit fine. Take a look at the assembled cab. I used gap filling ACC to put the cab together.
After the cab was put together, I started to clean up the boiler casting. It has a substantial amount of parting flash surrounding the smokebox. I spent the better part of four hours under a 5x magnifying lamp removing this flash. I'm still not quite finished, but take a look at what I started with and the end results. For you rivet counters, I lopped a couple off with the blade. With the cab assembled and the boiler casting cleaned up, the two could be joined together with some ACC. I test fit the cab to the back of the boiler and some work needed to be done to bring these two together. I filed the back of the boiler casting so the cab would fit properly, the cab roof has to be parallel to the boiler. After a dose of ACC, I set this assembly aside to begin work on the chassis.
I removed the motor, motor strap, light, valvegear hangers, cylinder castings and put the parts in one of my project boxes. This is what's left of the chassis. I also removed the side rods and both truck assemblies and their springs. I didn't want to take a chance on striking one of the truck wheels with a file. I filed the pilot area first, here's the before and after shots of it. Next on the list is to file the yoke area down until it is flush with the frame on the sides of the spur gear. After cutting flash from the boiler for four hours and shaping up the pilot, I was looking forward to doing some more tedious file work (yeah, right) so I filed down the top of the mechanism per the instructions and turned my attention to narrowing up the motor mount area. The instructions call for this area to be narrowed to 9.25mm wide. This wasn't easy nor was it fun. I filed for thirty minutes straight when, in a fit of insanity, decided to break out the power tools. I used a thin cut off disk in a Dremel and ran it just inside of the rails that are cast into the frame. The frame at this point is 10mm wide and light filing will reduce it to the required 9.25mm. I set the finished chassis aside to recover from what I'd just done. The instructions show the counterweights attached during all this filing. Don't add these castings until all the chassis modifications are complete. I also removed the red plastic area in front of the boiler mounting screw. This opened up an area to mount the constant lighting module. I'm using the EZ10-010 module from Richmond Controls Co. The only thing left to file was the front truck assembly. I cut off the coupler with a pair of tiny side cutters and filed the rest flush using the cutoff wheel in the Dremel.
01/27/01 After a week of not even looking at a file, I decided to add the frame extension and work on the motor mount. The previous filing of the motor mount area is critical to the correct placement of the frame extension casting. If you don't remove enough material under the motor mount area, this casting won't sit level or may not be correctly located or sit squarely under the chassis. I attached this casting with acc temporarily while I drilled the required .035 holes. I drilled the holes, but didn't tap them right away. Instead I glued on a brass plate to the top side of the frame above the two inline holes. I drilled up through this plate and then tapped the holes. This plate will form part of my motor mount. It differs from the instructions because I chose the 0816 coreless motor instead of the Sagami 1013. The instructions specify using flat head 00-90 screws to attach the casting to the frame and countersinking them. I did this with a drill bit that had the same diameter as the screw heads. I removed the casting and the motor plate. I don't want the casting to be damaged while I finish the motor mount. Since I intended on using the faulhauber motor with the power leads facing in, I needed to adapt the NWSL 1.5mm worm to the motors 1mm shaft. I turned an adapter using a piece of 1/16" OD thick wall brass tubing. I cut a piece about 3/8" long and drilled into it about the length of the worm with a 1mm bit. I left the tube on the drill bit, chucked bit and all into the Dremel and turned the OD down using a flat file until it friction fit into the worm. I cut the excess length off with a cutoff disc. This pic shows the worm, worm adapter, motor and motor mount sleeve. I slid the worm onto the adapter, secured it with acc, slipped this onto the motor shaft and secured it with acc as well.
